Carnivore draped in ire: a piercing overlay crushed against her soul, whittled and slashed at the particles of the air, a familiar sensation of apprehension rippling, scarring, emboldening. Like ghosts of the past, trickling through the icy borders, whispering wraith concoctions and convictions, audacious, poisonous, toxic indulgences rampantly stowed away, flourishing again in the witching hour. Were she a more fearful essence, the nymph may have wandered deeper into the confines of her glaciers and walls, of the caverns and labyrinthine grottos, held away, drawn into mirrors and darkness, warning about a wayward lad lost from the days of underground chambers and blighted swords. But instead, recognition blossomed, became a residual core kindled and ignited; she remembered the dusky, haunting snippets spent in the gaze of a monster, of a titan, born and deluded into catastrophe, into entropy, through no fault, through no inclination of their own: scarred and mottled without memory of their broken worth. She recalled the beasts she’d served, the titans she’d assuaged, the fiends she’d soothed, watched and witnessed as they all became their true selves; some more damaged than others, sprouting remorse and rancor in the vile halls, in the uncontrollable haze. Somehow, the heathen wrapped amidst the shadows, drawn by thirst, drawn by hunger, had been missed, forgotten, one more isolated monolith set into stone, struggling to fly. Someone’s child, isolated and bleak in the mist, someone’s babe, slaughtered into remnants of wolves and barbaric requiems. The Mender shuddered all but once for the memories of pestilence and demons, breathed a low, hopeful lilt, closed her eyes and prayed for a dip into serenity, into tranquility: for luminescence, for brilliance, for radiance, to paralyze a feral grip, to extinguish a bestial flame. Then she and Imogen slipped from the shadows, strong, mighty, and stalwart, christened with a maiden’s valor and a soldier’s beneficent armor, humming a song as she procured petal soft steps across the rime.

The croon wound and wove throughout the scenery, building, flowing, sleek, elegant and graceful, streamlined effervescence, a keen rapture; an aria’s unwinding crescendo. Gilded tapestries and canvas, her own method of artistry, capturing and hindering the crushing wake of a feral toxin, yearning to defeat the bloodied mess of a once promising future, eager to pluck away the poison and serenade the potential. The symphony surrounded and pervaded, her mouth consumed and devoured by the passionate display of ardent tunes unfolding, unraveling, persistence and devout, nurturing nature, fostering hope and peace in sublime conjectures: not a word passed but the singular tone of carillon interludes, strung note by note, rote by rote. A carol’s tune, a composer’s wish, a mending, melding fortress obliged and bestowed in seraphic fables and harmonic tomes – each stride brought her closer and closer into the depths of ogres and barbarians, youths and lads, a colt fallen too far from the nest. Brave, and sometimes too intrepid, she gave over the bits and pieces of her song in a lingering orchestra, honeyed gaze persistent, piercing, upon the shackled colt, seeing past the horror, the terror, the torture, and hoping, through their sylph-spun reverie, he could be cured of the powerful plague ensnaring, entangling him. Only after a time did she measure the length of a whisper, a caress of the heavens, to ensure his existence was no longer controlled by the devil’s onslaught: “How do you feel?”